Judy Miller: Obama Has 'Made a Mess' of Syria

President Barack Obama has led the nation on a path of indecisiveness in its policies in the Middle East, with the crisis in Syria being the latest mess, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Judy Miller says.

"By anyone’s standard, Barack Obama has made quite a mess out of this Syria policy . . . the kind of mess that he's asking American credibility at home and abroad to pay for," Miller told Ron Christie, guest host of "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"Americans have expected more of him because he is an extremely intelligent man but on the Syria policy he has just utterly, utterly been playing it by ear."

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He said the president first decided the United States would go it alone in launching a military strike when it was determined that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against rebel forces, killing more than 1,400.

"Then deciding we weren't going to go it alone, that he was going to go to the Congress while all the while saying he might still act even if Congress turns him down. Now if anyone can find a coherent strategy in all of this, then you're a far better analyst than I."

Miller, a Newsmax contributor and fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said she believes history will not refer to an "Obama Docterine" when it comes to the president’s policies, unlike George W. Bush’s policies being called the "Bush Docterine."

"You'd have to call it an 'Evacuation Doctrine' or, as one analyst called it, the 'Garbo Doctrine.' You know, I just want to be alone," Miller said.

"It's truly bewildering. This is a man who said that he was going to get us out of the Middle East but everything he's done since he came into office, and now in the second term, lays the groundwork for an eventual forced American response that will be greater or as great as any that we've had in recent years."

Miller said if Syrian President Bashar Assad is "not frightened away" from using chemicals, their usage could spread.

"If the Iranians decide that Obama has no stomach for significant military action and that they can go on their merry way on their … expansion of plutonium course, then all of that suggests that eventually the U.S. will have to intervene in a much more dramatic and perhaps much bloodier way than we would have had to if we had done things earlier …" she said.

"What president Obama has done now is project an image of indecisiveness, of we didn't really want to do this but now we have to … I'm very worried about how that will be seen among our friends and our enemies."